


Don't let go

by Molliartytho



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Almost death, Angst, I'm Sorry, M/M, So much angst, because the rest is so sad, bucky being an idiot, ends happy, ends so very happy, steve being an idiot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-21
Updated: 2015-12-21
Packaged: 2018-05-08 03:20:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5481437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Molliartytho/pseuds/Molliartytho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve jumps out in front of an attack to save Bucky and ends up getting himself into a lot more trouble</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't let go

**Author's Note:**

> This is a Christmas present for my friend. She is the angst queen so this is her fault. Merry Christmas Angst Queen I hope you enjoy this.

They had only been back with each other for two months. Bucky finally came back and was willing to let Steve help him.

It was one month of dancing around the fact that even after hydra, and brainwashing, and 70 years apart: they were still in love. Steve was cautious around Bucky and one night Bucky had finally had enough and pounced on him.

The “I love yous” didn’t even need to be said after all they’d been through, but they said them anyways. After so long apart they needed to hear it out loud, and they needed to say it. They were back together and they were going to stay that way.

Steve had even tried to quit the avengers so him and Bucky could move away and try and start over somewhere new. He’d always help if they needed it, but he didn’t want to be on call all the time anymore, he had someone he needed to take care. Bucky was so much more important to him than anything else.  

No one was willing to let him leave, in fact they all begged him to stay and when Bucky found him stressing over it all the time, he finally said “Fuck it Stevie I’ll just come with you on your missions. That way we don’t have to be apart and I can save your ass from being killed.”

Steve wasn’t too happy about it but Bucky was just as stubborn as he was, so that’s what ended up happening. And it caused a few arguments, but Steve actually enjoyed having Bucky with him all the time so he stopped bringing it up.

One month of them being _together_ in every sense of the word. As Bucky looks back on it now, he wishes he would have been a little more open with Steve during that month. Because he wasn’t sure if he was going to have much of a chance now. The love of his life, his best friend, the one person in the world he couldn’t live without was Steve Rogers. The punk who never knew what was good for him or when to give up and who threw himself in the line of fire for people he loved if they needed him to.

They were called into the middle of a big fight, there were explosions and gunfire all around them. The noise was almost too much and Bucky had the worst feeling in the pit of his stomach that something was going to go wrong. Steve wasn’t going to sit this one out and he certainly wasn’t going to surrender, so Bucky wasn’t going to either. He needed to stick with the punk in case he decided to do something stupid.

It had started out like any other fight, but as it progressed it seemed like these people knew about all the weaknesses the Avengers had.

They tried to kidnap Pepper in an attempt to get to Tony. Used Rhodey and Tony against each other. Threatened Clint to get to Natasha and vice versa. When they used Natasha to get to Bruce and he went hulk on everyone that’s how it all started.

But one by one they defeated their enemies. It was only after most of the fights had died down, that Bucky wondered what they were using against Steve. Because he thought it would have been him and he wasn’t being threatened or tortured.

When one of the hydra agents that had helped brainwash Bucky started throwing commands at him and using those code words they’d used when he was the winter soldier, Bucky finally understood. His head hurt and he fell to his knees, gripping the sides of his head and gritting his teeth, fighting the hold hydra thought they still had on him. They could do whatever they wanted to do to him, as long as _Steve was okay_. Bucky’s heart was racing and he felt light headed. What were they going to use him for this time? He wasn’t going to fight Steve again, he just wasn’t.

He heard the gun before he saw it, and panicked a little because he _couldn’t_ move. He _couldn’t_ fight back. And he _couldn’t_ scream out to warn anyone, to warn _Steve_ and to tell him that he loved him.

He looked up in time to see Steve jumping in front of the blows, getting hit what was probably eight or nine times before his shield hit the guy in the chest and he was thrown back. Bucky watched as Steve cried out in pain, grabbed his stomach, stumbled forward a step and fell to his knees.

Bucky felt the adrenaline start rushing and he was on his feet in a second, choking out Steve’s name. He pulled out his gun and shot the agent in the head when he got up again, one shot was all it took. Immediately after he was racing to get over to Steve. _His_ Steve. The idiot who had just literally jumped in front of a bullet to save him. Steve had just saved him _again_ , and all he could think was that he already wished it had been him instead.

* * *

 

It didn’t hurt that much, Steve didn’t think. He felt a slight pressure on his knees when they finally gave out, but that was it. There was too much going on, too many places that should have been hurting and his brain hadn’t caught up with his body. His breathing was labored, slowing down until it was mostly just gasps and he remembers having asthma attacks like this.

Blood pooled everywhere the bullets had entered him, he wished they’d shoot him again in the head so it’d be over. His whole body was falling forward and he couldn’t find the willpower or strength to stop it from happening. It hurt so much more than any other time he’d been shot. Maybe hydra had special bullets that could actually hurt him.

The thought made him want to cry. 

He heard another gunshot and a thud from in front of him, his enemy had been taken down. Well at least he was taken care of.  

His head hit the pavement and he felt a slight rush of relief like maybe it was all over. But the pain started again when someone turned him over onto his back and he cried out in pain, whimpered and knew he was crying even if he couldn’t feel it anymore. All he could feel washing over him was pain and slight panic because he hadn’t seen if Bucky was alright.

“Steve!” the voice sounded frantic and desperate. There were hands touching him and he didn’t have the strength to groan in pain.

“Steve, please c’mon baby open your eyes, help is coming you’re gunna be fine. Gotta stay with me, okay?” his voice was frantic

Steve recognized Bucky’s voice and slowly opened his eyes. Bucky was above him, trying to stop all the bleeding. His hands pressed against Steve’s stomach and Steve whimpered a little in pain. 

“You do not get to jump out in front of a bullet to save me and then die on me. _Not_ an option Rogers, you get your eyes open right now! You _stay with me_.” Bucky’s eyes filled with tears as he watched the one person he never wanted to live without, the only person he truly trusted and loved, slowly dying before his eyes. His head still hurt from resisting hydra’s commands and he didn’t have it in him to stop the crying too. He’d always been one to cry over Steve.

“H-had’um on the r-ropes Buck. H-had to save my b-best guy.” He gasps out, giving Bucky the best smile he could manage.

Bucky’s shaking his head, blinking the tears out of his eyes so he can see Steve’s face. He keeps a hand over the worst wound to stop the bleeding and cups his face with the other hand.

“You’re such a punk, I’m gunna kiss you and hit so hard when you’re outta the hospital.”

Steve tries to lift his hand to touch him one more time because he can feel it. It’s different this time, he’s not healing like he usually would be at this point. But his hands aren’t moving like he wants them to, so he looks up at Bucky’s face, it’s slightly blurry but he keeps his eyes open and on him.

“K-kiss me now..?” he asks weakly. Bucky shakes his head again and his voice cracks slightly as he replies

“No, not going to do that, after we get you better you can have all the kisses you want, I promise.” He looks over Steve’s face with tears falling down his cheeks slowly.

“Just hang on Stevie...”

“E-end of the line Buck…Please…” Steve gasps out and coughs up enough blood that Bucky’s not sure there’s any left in his body. His eyes are fluttering as he struggles to keep them open.

“No! Someone get over here now! Steve is down we need medical!” he yells into the coms, moving both his hands to try and stop the bleeding again.

Steve’s eyes are slowly closing, glazing over as he loses consciousness

“Steve! Open your eyes. You open your eyes right now you are not dyin on me!” Bucky’s movements are frantic and he can’t stop trying to will Steve awake with his words.

“Rogers you’re not giving up on me! Hydra is not takin you away from me, and you are not leavin me alone!”

He’s still yelling and crying and trying to get Steve to wake up when Sam, Rhodey and Vision get there to help.

“Steve!” he yells again, he watches his chest stop moving and his voice breaks as he slows his movements down and asks quietly “….S-Steve?”

He looks down at his face, all battered and dirty and he can’t help but cry even more. Steve’s eyes are closed now and he takes one more stuttered breath before he goes completely still. Bucky lets out a broken sob and his head falls into Steve’s chest, his grip gets tighter on his body, and the minute Sam tries to pull him off Steve he’s fighting.

He’s yelling and kicking and screaming.

“Don’t you dare take him away from me! Get the hell _off’a me_! I’m not letting him die alone, you let me go right now! Fuck you, fuck all of you! This never would have happened if you all hadn’t made him stay!”

It takes Sam and Rhodey to hold him back, and barely, because they don’t want him to hurt himself. Sam’s trying to talk to him and help him calm him down, but he’s too far gone to hear any of what he’s saying. He keeps his eyes on Steve’s face and keeps struggling in their hold but his concentration isn’t on that, it’s on Vision who is lifting Steve up in to his arms and starting to fly away.

“Steve….No bring him BACK!” Bucky calls out again, breaking away from their hold and going into fight mode. His Steve was being taken away from him and everything in his mind was screaming at him to fight, to fight and to kill.

It was like time slowed down and nothing mattered anymore. What was his life without Steve Rogers? He wasn’t going to find out, he was going to kill every last person who was involved in hurting him in any way and then he was done. He was dying too. End of the line was right, and they were both there together he wasn’t living without him.

When Rhodey tried to touch him his body just reacted and he punched him, even in his suit the other man went flying backwards. If he hadn’t been wearing the suit he would have been dead, one hard blow from Bucky’s metal arm in the chest was all it would have taken.

Sam tried to grab his arm and Bucky threw him off as well. He started running towards where he saw Vision still carrying Steve.

In the end it took Tony, Rhodey, Thor, Sam and Natasha all jumping in, working together and holding him down to stop him.

He wasn’t listening to reason, he was angry and still fighting them all with no care who got hurt, and finally someone, probably Natasha, had to smack his head back hard enough that he’d be knocked unconscious.

* * *

 

When Bucky opened his eyes he heard the beeping of the machines he started to panic. He hated being hooked up to any machines, especially ones that made sounds like that. They all reminded him of Hydra.

“Hey! Bucky it’s okay, you’re okay.” Sam’s voice came from his left side and his head whipped around to look at him.

“What… Where…why’m I…” Bucky stopped as the memories from the fight came flooding back and he immediately felt sick to his stomach. His breathing sped up and he starting looking around the room.

“Steve.” He breathed out, his heart sinking and feeling like he wanted to die all over again. He felt light headed, like the world wasn’t even real around him.

“Where’s Steve?” he asks, reaching over and grabbing Sam’s arm maybe a little too tightly.

Sam looked at him for a long moment and opens his mouth to reply but can’t bring himself to say anything, so Bucky jumps to the worst case scenario.

“He’s gone?” his voice is as small as he feels and the tears come back to his eyes. His grip on Sam loosens and he lets his arm fall slack to the side.

“Stupid punk can’t… he can’t be gone.” He whispers.

Bucky doesn’t feel as angry as he had when it happened. (Yes he was still furious and when he finds the bastards that did it he was going to kill them all slowly and painfully.) He was desperately sad. Sadness this deep, he wasn’t sure had a definition. His chest hurt, it was hard to breathe, it was like Steve being gone ripped a piece of him out and he didn’t know how to function without it. His body didn’t want to keep going because Steve wasn’t going to be with him.

He closed his eyes, biting his now trembling lip and a desperate broken sound managed to escape from the back of his throat as the tears started up again.

Sam didn’t say anything, he just sat next to the bed. After an hour, when Bucky didn’t think he had anymore tears left he started to feel that anger again. He was seeing red and people were going to pay for what they did to his Steve.

The heart monitor sped up with his angry heartbeat and Sam was quick to push the button that pumped him full of more drugs. Bucky didn’t even have time to fight back before he was once again slipping back into sleep.

“Won’t make it better…can’t keep puttin me under…just kill me…s’not worth it without Steve.” He mumbled, voice thick from crying and words slurring from the drugs as he once again lost consciousness.

Sam swallowed hard as he felt his heart sink and he looked up to the waiting room window where Natasha was standing, jaw set and an angry look in her usually expressionless eyes.

* * *

 

It was like that for the next few days.

He’d wake up, remember about Steve, cry for a little while and then try and get up to go kill people. And every time he did someone was there to drug him up again.

He finally gave in to it all. He just stayed quiet and cried every once in a while as he thought about his Stevie. That stupid punk saved him and he was _so mad_ at him for being dead. He wouldn’t eat, sleeping only came because of the drugs and when people tried to have him get up and walk around he gave them a hollow expression and they dropped it. He was never moving again, because _Steve was gone_ and there was _no point_.

Three weeks after the fight Sam and Natasha came into his room. They were both being hesitant and he knew they had paced back and forth outside the room for a half an hour, which was odd but he couldn’t find it in him to care.

He couldn’t find it in him to care about anything, or do anything. So he just wasn’t.

“Bucky?” Sam started out in his soothing therapeutic complete bullshit voice that Bucky couldn’t stand anymore because he’d been hearing it for the last three weeks.

“Fuck off both of you. Already told you m’not movin…” he spits out and goes back to wallowing, all curled up in the middle of the bed and staring off into space. His whole world was black and white. He moved only when he needed to, and even then he was numb the whole time.

“You might after we tell you this.” Natasha replies nonchalantly, but he can hear some emotion behind her words that he can’t quite place.

“Nothin you can say to me will make me want to move. Steve’s…” He swallows hard, the tears coming to his eyes again like it had just happened yesterday and the thought of it rips open the wound again. He clamps his eyes shut and tries to get rid of the feeling of agony that rips through him as he says Steve’s name. The agony that rips through him at every thought of Steve he has.

And everything reminds him of Steve.  

“Just go away.” His voice makes him sound as depressed and small as he feels.

There’s a moment where everything is silent and Bucky thinks they actually listened to him for once but the silence is broken and his blood runs cold as it is.

“Steve’s alive.” Natasha says quietly.

Bucky’s head whips around so he can look at her.

“ _What_?” he all but hisses at her.

“He was in pretty bad shape when Vision got him back here, and it took three days to get him stabilized. One of the bullets…”

Bucky cuts her off by sitting up a little too quickly and has to balance himself on his metal arm.

“That isn’t fucking funny. What kind of a sick joke is this?” his voice is slowly getting louder and Sam takes a step back remembering what it’s like to have the wrath of Bucky Barnes on him.

“Look it’s not a joke…he’s down the hall in the next recovery room…”

Bucky doesn’t want to believe it. His head is spinning and he feels like he wants to throw up. They wouldn’t give him false hope, but right now that’s what it felt like to him.

“It’s been _three weeks_. Why wouldn’t you... You wouldn’t have kept it a secret for this long, why are you doing this to me? Haven’t I been through _enough_?!” he yells at them, his hands clench into fists and he is shaking so hard it’s visible.

“Bucky come on you can go see him, he’s awake and asking for you.”  Sam says in that same voice and Bucky starts on a rant in Russian.

It must have been bad because Natasha flinched during part of it. She put her hands up as if she was trying to sooth him and tried talking softly.

“James…”

“Don’t you dare fucking _James_ me!” He growled at her before swinging his legs over the side of the bed and getting to his feet. They couldn’t be telling the truth. But he had to see it. He had to know that Steve wasn’t there, because the slightest chance that he was alive made Bucky feel like he could breathe again.

He balanced himself and then all but ran to the next recovery room, he had to see if it was true. He ran into the room and what he saw made his whole world stop.

Steve was lying there, his face almost all the way healed, and facing towards the window.  

“S-Steve…” Bucky choked out, stumbling into the room over to the bed where he stopped because he couldn’t believe his eyes.

Steve stopped what he was doing and turned to smile up at him. It was that “happy to see you, you’re my favorite person in the whole world smile” that Steve saved only for Bucky. It was almost shy and so very _Steve_ that Bucky wanted to cry.

“Steve.” Bucky breathed out and put a shaking hand on his cheek. “You’re…alive.”

“T-They wouldn’t…you were…but I saw you…” he all but collapsed next to the bed, falling to his knees and Steve let out a worried gasp, reaching out towards him immediately.

“Buck, hey, hey don’t do that, c’mere, climb up here with me. Let’s go you can do it.” He said and used one arm to tug Bucky up and scooted over a little so there would be room for them both. Bucky thought Steve’s voice was the only sound he wanted to hear for a very long time. He ran a hand over his arm and felt his skin. He felt the warmth that was Steve. That’s when the crying started.

His chest hurt and he knew he wasn’t going to be alright for a long time.

It took a little coaxing, but Bucky moved so he was lying right next to Steve gripping onto him like his life depended on it.

“You were d-dead.” Bucky sobbed into his chest, his whole body shaking. “You j-jumped in front of those bullets, you are such an i-idiot. Such a _fucking idiot_. You are _never_ going on a mission ever again, you are never leaving _my sight_ you understand me? I can’t believe you did that you _stupid son of a bitch_.”

Steve rubbed his back gently and didn’t even comment on the fact he was laying on one of his injuries that still hurt. No he was just too caught up in being with Bucky again and making sure he was okay to worry about himself.

“Okay.” He responds quietly, pressing a kiss to the top of Bucky’s head “I’ll never leave your sight, I promise.”

It took a little while for Bucky to calm down enough to pull away from Steve’s now tear soaked chest, and look at his face. He brought his flesh hand up to trace over his cheek and his jaw and every part of him he could reach.

“You stupid punk.” He whispered, “Why would you jump in front of me like that? Why would you make me think I had to somehow live without you?”

Steve frowned at that and shook his head

“Bucky I had to save you. I was never gunna let hydra near you ever again and I had already failed that part so I jumped between you and the bullets. How was I supposed to know they were specially designed to hurt me?”

Bucky let his head drop back down to Steve’s chest and felt his slow intake of breaths. He timed his own breathing with Steve’s.

“And we never wanted to keep you in the dark that was all Tony’s idea. Steve just woke up this morning and has been bugging us to get you for him for hours..” Natasha’s voice came from the doorway and Bucky growled.

He was not in the mood to deal with her, and the minute his brain caught up with what she’d said he turned so he could reply angrily at her

“You think it matters? You kept me in the dark about _my_ boyfriend, the love of _my_ life, _my_ Steve. I _don’t care_ whose idea it was I’m pissed off at all of you.” He glared at her and then kept on his angry rant “Tony’s already on my hit list and he just made it to the top of it so tell him to watch his fucking back. I’m so ready to…” Bucky was cut off by Steve pulling him down into a kiss. He made a sound of protest, but melted against his lips. He held off the tears as he realized he thought he’d never get to kiss him again.

When Steve finally pulled away from him, he followed and kissed him deeper and he knew by the time he was done kissing Steve that Natasha had left.

“You promised me as many kisses as I want. And every time you think about killing Tony I want you to kiss me so you don’t.” Steve says slightly out of breath.

“I’m going to be kissing you all the time.” Bucky says and kisses him again. Steve laughs a little against his lips and Bucky swears it’s the best thing he’s ever heard. His heart feels light and he wants to cry more and scream with joy that Steve is alive.

“They thought they were doing you a favor because apparently you went a little… irrational when you thought I was dead. I told them just to tell you, but I’m taking a lot longer to heal than usual so I couldn’t come to you.” Steve says quietly, a worried but fond look in his eyes.

Bucky just leans in and kisses him again and again until he thinks maybe, just maybe he can live for a second without kissing him. He never wants to stop, wants to die attached to his lips.

Resting their foreheads together Bucky says

“It’s not your fault they’re idiots. But we’re leaving and not coming back for a very _very_ long ass time. Call it a vacation or a holiday or whatever you need to justify it to yourself, because I was serious about not letting you out of my sight ever again. I’m not doing that again Stevie I’m just…not.”

Steve swallows hard and nods. “Okay Bucky. I’m sorry I…”

“Shut up. You stupid beautiful idiot.” Bucky interrupts and threads his fingers through Steve’s hair as he kisses him again, never getting enough of his lips. Of feeling him alive and moving and warm beneath his fingertips.

Steve’s hand traces up his arm and rests on the back of his neck and Bucky feels the goosebumps follow where his hand touches him. 

“Thought I actually was gunna die. Waiting for you to come in here.” Steve breathes as Bucky starts trailing kisses down his jaw to his neck.

“Gunna get sick of me because I’m never leaving your side again.” Bucky mutters against his skin.

Steve lets his eyes close, his grip tightening on Bucky as the brunet holds him closer and he thinks he might be just fine with that. He might be just fine with staying there for the rest of their lives, holding tight to each other and never letting go. 


End file.
